


Coup de Grâce

by Starlightify



Series: to ground [3]
Category: DCU
Genre: Autism, Background Relationships, F/F, F/M, Gen, Jewish Character, Kryptonite, M/M, Multi, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-30 02:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8515588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlightify/pseuds/Starlightify
Summary: The Joker makes his move and everything comes to a head.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains warnings for torture, both psychological and physical, accidental self-harm, references to harm to children, terrorism, and murder. It contains poisoning, non-graphic scenes of vomiting, and electrocution. As before, a major theme in this story is abuse and trauma. Don't read this if you think it would do bad things to your mental state. We're not kidding. Please be safe.
> 
> This author's note contains mentions of Nazism and discussions of the recent US election. It also has spoilers for the end of the fic. Again, use your discretion.
> 
> We debated what to do with this fic. It seemed kind of weird to post, in the aftermath of the US elections - while it doesn't deal with politics, "Coup de Grâce" is a violent, visceral work. It deals with a fear of death and the threat of a powerful abuser. It deals with a state of fear and anxiety that suddenly comes to a head in a strike that's not unexpected but is still shocking. It deals with pain and loss and fear.
> 
> But here's the thing.
> 
> Everyone besides the Joker survives this fic.
> 
> Today, November 9th, is the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht. 78 years ago today, Nazis engaged in a campaign of terror and killed our people and destroyed their homes, their businesses, and their places of worship. We feel deeply unsettled by the fact that this anniversary occurred immediately after the election. We fear the future. We have every reason to fear the future.
> 
> But here is a story we made. It took us months to put together "To Ground." We worked with a lot of traumatic shit, both from the comics and from our own lives. In this story, terrible things happen, but everyone besides the Joker survives.
> 
> Not everyone is going to survive this shit, out here in this world. A whole lot of people aren't. We can hope and pray and plead that we won't lose as many as we have before, but we - this system - are not that optimistic.
> 
> So here is a story about how despite everything, the bad guy loses.

“I think I’ve got something for you on the east docks,” Barbara says through the link in Bruce’s cowl.

Bruce grunts.

“There’s a trail from a shipment that came in yesterday to one of the Joker’s shell companies.”

Bruce returns to the Batmobile.

“It’s already gone, but maybe someone saw something,” Barbara continues. “I’m sending you all the details I have on the shipment now.”

The Joker’s been quieter lately. Suspiciously so. He’s ghosted out the way he does sometimes - dropping from everyone’s radar, not doing anything. Or at least, not doing anything that can be traced back to him. Probably the latter. And that’s worrisome. To Bruce, that says the Joker _knows_ something.

The security on Harley and Ivy has increased. Themyscira is… between realities, not anchored to a physical location, not accessible to anyone who’s not welcome. But Bruce and Diana aren’t going to count on that as the first and last line of defense. Just because Themyscira’s never been invaded doesn’t mean it can’t be. First time for everything.

He hears Harley is doing well. Working through her experiences. Expressing herself. Processing. It’s good. He’s glad.

The Batmobile swoops through the streets, engine silent.

Bruce hasn’t gone to check on her. He doubts he’ll be welcome. He is going to write her a letter, though. Soon. Just to say that he’s glad that she trusted him enough not to run away when he first showed up at the safehouse. And to ask after her hyenas, and re-emphasize that he’s not going to send her to jail or to Arkham when she returns.

But first he’s going to put the Joker away.

~x~

Nothing at the docks gives him an idea of where the Joker is. The Joker didn’t come to pick up the shipment himself, there are no cameras at this end of the docks, and no one saw the vehicles the people who picked up the shipment came in. The Joker is being very, very careful. Bruce is sure he knows something, and just as sure that he’s trying not to tip his hand. Usually he leaves hints, clues, a trail. It’s a big game to him. But not this time.

Of the shipment itself, all he knows is that it was small, a single mid-sized crate. Probably not arms. The people who picked it up had carried it like it was light.

He doesn’t like this.

~x~

Selina meets Red Hood at the same apartment building she tailed him to a little over a week ago, forty thousand dollars in cash in her backpack. She’s sure Red Hood has other places - she’s making a concerted effort to track his movements now, and he can’t be coming back here every time he sleeps - and she’s just as sure he doesn’t want her to know about them. And now, in addition to feeding the cats he encounters, he’s saluting them. He knows they’re watching him.

Selina hasn’t gotten very far with the mystery of Red Hood’s identity. Detective work isn't her thing. Titania won't touch the Red Hood case - she's got a thing about accepting the identities people present and not digging deeper without reason. And Selina can’t tell Bruce about this, for obvious reasons. She knows about what she knew when she set out to find Red Hood - he means business and he’s operating under some moral framework. He targets mobsters, traffickers, pimps, drug pushers, dirty cops. And domestic abusers. It’s been on the news a couple times, people killed all over the city with the same distinctive knife. The only common thread between them was that they were hurting people. Their partners. Their families. Their children.

The murders started around the time that she thinks Red Hood came to town. Clever of him, using an identifiable weapon so that the survivors didn’t get in trouble.

“How’d you like Garza?” Red Hood asks when Selina climbs in the window. He’s wearing the helmet. He’s also wearing ripped cargo pants and a t-shirt with a band logo on it. It’s very incongruous.

“Good work,” Selina says. Phineas Garza died in his sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning, the official report said. No question of foul play. Just random bad luck. She takes the money out, stack by stack, hands it over. Red Hood flips through each stack and then sticks them in his own backpack. It’s bulging by the end of the transaction. She hopes he’ll accept a wire transfer for the Joker job - she thinks maybe, when he asked for cash, he wasn’t aware of just how many bills went into forty thousand. “I’m impressed. The job’s yours.” She tilts her head, and makes a guess based on what she knows of Red Hood. “You’ve already started, haven’t you?”

Red Hood chuckles. The helmet distorts his voice. Sort of like the way Bruce’s cowl does. “You got me there,” he says. “But I guess you picked a bad time to call me in, amiga. The Joker’s gone quiet.”

“I noticed,” Selina says drily.

Red Hood holds up a hand. “Now, that doesn’t mean I’ve got nothing,” he says. “The last person he hit from the Arkham folks before he went AWOL is Jervis Tetch.”

“You think he got something from Hatter?” Selina asks.

Red Hood starts sharpening a knife. It’s more of a fidget than a threat. “Nah. If Joker was dealing with Tetch, he wouldn’t have burned down his bookstore. I think Joker’s found someone else, and that leaves a short list of Arkham folks that he could be dealing with.”

“What makes you think he’s dealing with someone from Arkham?” Selina asks. She knows he’s being deliberately vague, luring her into asking questions, pressing for more. She also doesn’t really mind. She knows how lonely this kind of living can be, and if her playing the fascinated Watson to his Holmes makes him happy, it doesn’t cost her anything.

“All the Joker knows how to do is bait Batman and company. He’s nothing against anyone else.” Red Hood’s fingers slip, and the knife slices the pad of his thumb. He sets the knife down with a taut, controlled movement, digs in his backpack with his uninjured hand and knocks several stacks of bills freed before he pulls out the same dog-stickered first aid kit. He bandages his thumb as he keeps talking. For someone who moves so carefully otherwise, he seems to injure himself a lot. “So he needs help. The mobs ask too much and can’t do shit against someone like Poison Ivy, so they’re out. He was just hitting them for information and arms and to make a scene. What he’s really after is someone who he can control, and someone who can fuck up metahumans. That's Arkham folks.”

“But he started this whole thing with the Penguin,” Selina says. Oswald’s fucking useless in a fight, everyone knows that. Get past his trick umbrellas and his traps and he’s not even decent with a knife. He's also more of a mob type than anyone else who's a regular at Arkham.

“Yeah. Penguin was a performance. To show everyone he wasn’t fucking around. Probably he was also looking for information on where Harley was, but it was mostly about the spectacle. Since then, he’s hit Croc, who was probably also a performance, Freeze, Firefly, and Strange. And Hatter.” Red Hood clasps his hands together, interlacing his fingers. “And what’s funny about that is that Strange and Hatter wouldn’t be able to do much against Poison Ivy. He changed his strategy. But he still went after Arkham people.”

“So you think all the people he’s hit he’s asked to join him. And when they refuse, he makes examples of them?”

“Pretty much,” Red Hood says. “Now, he seems to still be sticking to people who have something that could give them an edge on metahumans. And since he’s dropped off the radar, that means he found someone to deal with. So that leaves us Crane, Clayface, and Grundy as possible partners. I’m going to get to the Joker through them.”

“And then what?” Selina says.

Red Hood picks up his knife. “And then I tail him back to his hideout and put a whole fucking clip in his head.”

~x~

The TVs in the office cut out and fizzle, static blurs fizzing across the screen.

“Here we go again,” sighs Lois, and she sounds so absolutely _bored_ by the prospect of criminal demands being broadcasted across the city that Clark has to stifle a wholly inappropriate laugh.

“Hello Metropolis,” says an electronic voice.

It’s been pretty quiet lately, as things go. The last big event was a robbery at STAR Labs a little over a week ago, in which the robbers had mostly just smashed a bunch of things and overturned filing cabinets before fleeing. Clark had been helping rebuild a coastal town that had been hit by a bad storm and didn’t hear about it until he got back. The robbers didn’t even take anything important. The Kryptonite vaults were untouched. It was almost disappointing, and while Clark wouldn’t say that he’s missed this kind of action… it has felt kind of weird without it.

“There is a bomb beneath the city,” the voice says, and then Clark’s not laughing any more. “It will go off in five minutes. You have that long to evacuate.” The TVs shut off.

That’s a new one.

“That’s it?” Lois says. “No ransom? Just ‘get out’?”

Her voice breaks the stillness in the aftermath of the broadcast words, and the office flies into panic. People run into each other in their haste to flee. Unnoticed in the chaos, Clark stands, takes a few quick strides, and kisses Lois on the cheek. She turns her head so their lips brush, and Clark feels grounded and high all at once.

She pulls back, puts her hands on either side of his face. “Don’t even think of trying to fly me out of the city,” Lois whispers. “Go save the day.”

Clark’s used to this by now. Dodge people, just slow enough that he’s moving at believably human speeds. Duck into the meeting room that no one ever uses because the seal on the windows is weird no matter how many times people come out to fix it. Open a window. Change so fast he can’t be seen, slick his hair back with the tiny bottle of gel he keeps in his pocket, fly out the window and close it behind him before flying off.

In defense of all of the excellent work that various repair companies have tried to do on the windows, the seals probably weren’t meant to stand up to being opened and closed at superspeed on a regular basis.

Clark looks down at the city. The bomb is probably in a subway tunnel - an unused one, so it wouldn’t be disturbed. He calls up the map of shut down subway tunnels in his mind and overlays it on the city from above. Then he starts scanning, looking for radiation, big energy sources - there. Beneath an alleyway off Fourteenth. Clark dives, and goes straight through the asphalt. Usually he tries to avoid causing that kind of damage, but he needs to do this as fast as possible. People are panicking, and when people panic, they tend to get hurt. He needs to get rid of the bomb now.

The fact that this is probably a trap is a secondary concern. He can save Metropolis. Then he can deal with whoever’s trying to get his attention.

Clark reaches for the bomb so he can pitch it into the sun, and a little mechanism in the lead-lined case goes _click_.

Green gas sprays out of a newly opened valve in the case, and the world spins. Clark feels himself collapsing, thinks, _no, no_ and struggles to reach the bomb. His vision is going black, fading out at the edges.

His fingers meet the bomb’s hard edges.

He flings it out of the hole he made when he entered the tunnel, towards the flicker of sky he can barely see. The bomb goes flying.

Clark passes out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains torture of both physical and psychological varieties, graphic depictions of injury and poisoning, non-graphic vomiting, panic attacks, and discussions of murder.
> 
> Apologies for the day late update, we just turned 21 and were on a roadtrip, and so couldn't post. We will be able to update on Wednesday, though :)

“Pick up pick up pick up,” Lois chants. Krypto makes that weird little whine-murmur that he does when he knows something’s wrong. It’s less an animal whine and more a mechanical whine. He nudges Lois with his nose, hot breath fanning over her neck. She doesn’t respond. She’s focused on the phone.

“What’s up?” says a sunny voice with a hint of a tired slur. Tim.

“I need to talk to Bruce right now,” Lois says.

“Got it,” Tim says. She hears him yell “BRUCE!”

Her heart is slamming against her ribcage like waves from a hurricane. When Bruce picks up and says “Lois?” she feels like she might start screaming. Not words, just. Screaming.

“Clark’s missing,” she says. Krypto’s ears go all the way up, and he sits beside her. It's the first time she's said it out loud. She’s sitting on the floor of her and Clark’s apartment, her back against the back of the couch. “There was a bomb threat. Five hours ago. He left to get rid of the bomb and didn’t come back.”

She had been _waiting_. And working on the story, getting witnesses, writing up a piece on the threat, of course. But all the while she was keeping an eye out for when Clark came back in with his hair a mess and his suit rumpled, with a terrible excuse for his absence and a dozen leads. When he didn’t come back right away, Lois figured he was tracking down whoever made the threat. But he kept not being back. And then the workday was over, and he _still wasn’t back_. And she got home, and he wasn’t there. And he didn’t answer either of his phones.

Lois knows something is wrong. She can feel it. And she hates things like that, intuition and unquantifiable feelings, because ‘I can feel it’ doesn’t count as a reliable source, but she can. She can feel it.

“Fuck,” Bruce says flatly, the monotone he gets when he doesn't know how to display his emotions or what emotion he should be displaying.

Then, “His tracker’s not working.”

The tracker’s wired into Clark's suit. Into the suits of all of the Justice League members. So when there’s an emergency they know who’s the closest. It’s so durable it’s almost Clark-proof - he actually has to make an effort to break it.

If it’s not working…

“Someone set a trap,” Bruce says.

“It’s him, isn’t it,” Lois says. “The Joker.”

Selina and Clark have been telling her what they know. She’s been following the news closely, and her own Gotham sources have been keeping her updated. She’s been worried about Selina. It never occurred to her to be worried about Clark.

“It may very well be,” Bruce says. “I’m calling in the League. We’re going to find him, Lois.”

Krypto whine-murmurs. Lois gets an idea.

“Do you think you could use the dog?” Lois asks.

Krypto tilts his head.

“He’s not trained as a tracker,” Bruce says.

“But he’s _smart_. He might figure something out.”

“Lois…” Bruce sighs. “I don’t want someone to see Krypto and panic. I don’t want _Krypto_ to panic. He’s never been in this type of situation before, and I don’t really think these are the best circumstances under which to introduce the world to Superman’s alien pet.”

Krypto makes a noise like a vacuum cleaner. Lois… can’t really argue with Bruce there. “Fine,” she says viciously.

“We’re going to find him, Lois,” Bruce says.

There’s too many questions she could ask in response. The one weighing on her the most heavily is ‘will he be alive when you do?’

“You better,” Lois says.

~x~

“The Joker has Superman,” Selina says in lieu of a greeting when Red Hood picks up.

There’s silence. Then “Shit,” Red Hood says, letting the word hiss between his teeth. “And the League has Harley. Of course.”

“He’s had Superman for around six hours,” Selina says. “Took him from Metropolis. You need to find the Joker, now.”

“Hm,” Red Hood grunts. “I’ve got news for you, too.”

“Please tell me it’s that the Joker accidentally mailed you a map to his hideout,” Selina says. She’s pacing her room like a tiger in a cage, ready to rip the flesh of the first target she can find. Lois was so upset when she called. Near tears.

Selina is not going to let the Joker kill Clark.

She is tired of that man hurting her family.

“I fucking wish. But I found out who he’s been dealing with,” Red Hood says. “Jonathan Crane.”

Crane.

The Joker’s been working with Scarecrow.

And now he has Clark.

“Do you know where Crane is?” Selina says.

“He rabbited from his latest hidey-hole yesterday - I’ve been trying to track him down. Best guess, he’s at the Hatter's safe house, at Fifth and Jacoby.” Jacoby. Or, the street formerly known as ‘Alice’, which the city had renamed after the Hatter kept committing crimes there. Apparently the name change hasn’t deterred him much. “You want me to go after him?”

“No,” Selina says. “You put everything you have into finding the Joker. I’ll tell you what I learn from Crane.”

~x~

So this could probably have gone better.

Significantly better.

Actually, there’s a lot that would be an improvement on the situation that Clark is currently in.

Clark tries to move his hands and do something to loosen the Kryptonite-coated spikes stabbed through his palms. All he accomplishes is pulling loose what few scabs his body had managed to form when he was unconscious and start the blood flowing again. He’s not sure what’s worse - the pain from the Kryptonite poisoning, or the pain from having massive Kryptonite spikes jabbed through his hands. Given that it’s hard to be entirely sure which aspect of the pain he’s currently suffering comes from which source, he’s just going to have to go with ‘they’re both awful and I’d like to go home.’ He’s covered in sweat. Can’t really think straight. His stomach is roiling, and he feels _wrong_. Very, very wrong. He thinks there’s probably more kryptonite in the room than just the stuff in his hands.

He also has a killer headache from whatever nightmare cocktail of knockout gasses managed to take him out. His brain is too fuzzy for him to really parse through the residual scents, try to figure out what chemicals were used so he knows to avoid them in the future. Not that he really could have avoided them this time.

Clark has no idea how long he’s been out. He’s in a windowless room. Totally nondescript, concrete floors, concrete walls. He’s strapped to… something, with metal restraints that, among other things, keep him from being able to turn his head much. His costume is gone - at least whoever stripped him left him his underwear, complete with wadded-up-Clark-Kent-clothing packer, though that’s sort of a small comfort in the grand scheme of things.

He feels his claustrophobia creeping up on him, rushing in and amplifying all the fear he’s already feeling. The panic takes him, and Clark can’t move, can’t breathe. He’s dying. He’s dying he’s doomed oh Hashem he’s dying...

When Clark comes back to himself, he feels sore, tired, aching. His breaths still come ragged from the panic attack, but his body is too exhausted to sustain that level of fear forever. The bloody bile on the floor from when the combination of radiation and terror got to be too much is drying into a pink streak, and his throat _burns_. He sags in the metal bonds and the world goes dark.

~x~

Selina rolls through the window of the Hatter’s latest haunt in her combat suit. It’s heavier than the suits she uses for stealing or tracking, armored and reinforced. It also has a full-face helmet and wickedly curved claws. Glass crunches beneath her feet as she rises.

Hatter looks up from his tea, by all appearances completely unruffled by her entrance. “Hello, Catwoman,” he says. “Have you come to join us?”

“I’ll pass,” she says. “I have some questions for Crane.”

Jonathan Crane’s fingers go slack and his teacup slips from his fingers. It hits the floor and spills all over the hardwood - but it doesn’t shatter. A plastic teacup, maybe? Hatter’s looks porcelain.

“Now, now, don’t be too hasty,” Hatter says. “Why don’t you sit, have some tea -”

“I don’t have the time for this,” Selina says. Crane hasn’t moved, despite the tea slowly soaking into his socks. His eyes are wide behind his round glasses. “Crane, we need to talk about the Joker.”

Crane shudders once, violently. The Hatter’s demeanor changes instantly. He can’t really threaten her - half the reason she’s wearing the combat suit is because his mind-control devices won’t get past the armor. But she can recognize, with the vague, abstract part of herself that’s not consumed with fear and rage, that it’s sweet that Hatter is trying anyway. That’s it’s sweet that Hatter apparently keeps a special, non-breakable teacup for Crane’s use.

“He was forced to do it,” the Hatter says. “You can’t -”

“I can and will do whatever the fuck I want,” Selina snaps. Not the best way to run this interaction - Crane is jumpy, easily startled and even more easily frightened. But she has no patience left. “The Joker took Superman, Crane, and I know you were working with him. Tell me what he had you do.”

Crane swallows, opens his mouth a couple times in false starts before he finds his voice. “He forced me to do it,” Crane says. He twists his fingers together, rubbing the skin red and white. “He thought the Justice League took Harley, and he made me make fear gas that would work on Superman.”

Oh god.

She’d been pretty sure that was what was going on, but hearing it…

“Where did he take Superman?” Selina asks, flexing her fingers rhythmically.

“I don’t know,” Crane says. He scuffs a foot along the floor, dragging the tea puddle into arcane shapes. The delay, however small, makes Selina want to scream. “His plan is to torture Superman a while. Try to get Harley’s location out of him. If Superman doesn’t respond to that, he’ll use the gas.” Crane pushes his glasses up his nose until the rims bump his brows. “But. That’s where it’ll end.”

“What does that mean?” Selina demands.

“If Joker uses that gas, the Kryptonite in it will kill Superman in half an hour.”

Selina takes a half-step forward, ready to lunge at Crane before she’s consciously aware that she’s moving. She stops herself, trembling with the effort. If she sends Crane into a panic attack, she’s not going to get any answers. “Why,” she says, voice shaking, “would you do that?”

Despite her best efforts, Crane still reacts fearfully. He picks his feet up off the floor, curls himself into a corner of the chair. “Different people react to fear gas different ways,” he says. “Some people can’t move, some people cry, others try to attack their phantoms. If Superman tries to attack the phantoms, who knows what kind of damage he could do? And if he’s conscious enough to recognize he’s under the effects of fear gas, _he’ll come after me_! Making sure the gas would kill him was the only way I could stay safe.”

Selina almost does scream, then. She knows, she knows it’s not Crane’s fault, knows that the Joker looms large and terrifying and has thrown less fearful people into mad panic. But Clark is in danger, and Crane is a part, no matter how small, of why he’s there.

She activates the communicator in her helmet.

“Batman,” she says tightly. “I have some information for you.”

Let Batman get the rest of the details out of Crane. He’ll know what questions to ask. Then she can pass the information on to Red Hood.

~x~

Bruce remembers his first time meeting Superman.

Well. Technically not his first time - he had met Clark Kent a day earlier. But at the time, he hadn’t known they were the same person.

And Superman made a very different impression than Clark Kent.

Superman had a presence that drew attention. Yet, strikingly, Superman was not _threatening_ , in and of himself. Bruce had thought it was because the threat was implied - no need for Superman to posture and bluster when everyone knew damn well he could snap someone’s neck with a twitch of his fingers.

But then he got to know Superman.

Got to know Clark.

And realized that Clark did not want to be threatening, did not want people to fear him, was more interested in saving people than punishing wrongdoings. Clark was not a god, and moreover, would never think of himself as one. He truly did not believe his powers set him above humans.

Bruce learned other things.

That Clark is claustrophobic.

That Clark likes chocolate but loves cinnamon.

That when Clark laughs his eyes crinkle so much they almost shut entirely.

Crane’s fear, that Superman would come after him, that Superman would go on a rampage if exposed to fear gas, is the fear of a man who does not know Clark Kent. And that fear is going to get Clark killed if they can’t find him before the Joker gets bored with more conventional tortures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who flipping HATES THE INJUSTICE STORYLINE it's us. Just. Despise it.
> 
> From a scientific standpoint, "put Kryptonite in it" shouldn't be an effective way to make something like fear gas work on Clark's alien physiology. Kryptonian fear chemicals are not going to be the same as human fear chemicals. From a character standpoint, no. Absolutely not. No. Not a chance.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains torture of both physical and psychological varieties, graphic depictions of injury and poisoning, a fair amount of blood, panic attacks, and murder. Let's get this party started.

Clark wakes after an indeterminate amount of time to the whine of an intercom crackling to life.

“Rise and shine, Supie!”

Well, the voice explains some things. Clark can’t find it in him to muster much relief about finally knowing who his captor is, though. If the Joker has him, that means the Joker knows the League is helping Harley. Means the Joker is probably going to torture Clark until he reveals where Harley is.

Clark isn’t naive. He knows a lot about himself and his limits, and over the past few weeks, he’s learned a lot about the Joker, too. Clark is going to break. Sooner or later, the Joker’s going to crack him open like a safe and take whatever secrets he wants from Clark’s depths. There will still be the magic that protects Themyscira and an army of Amazons between the Joker and Harley, but he’ll still know where to look. Because of Clark.

Salt water stings the cracked skin of his lips.

“You haven’t gone and died on me, have you?” the Joker asks. “I thought you were supposed to be made of stronger stuff than that. Or are you feeling a little _green_ around the gills?”

The Joker thinks he’s funny. The Joker also thinks that hurting people is funny. Bruce explained it, during the briefing on the Joker he gave the Justice League after they agreed to protect Harley and Ivy.

‘The joke is that it hurts. The joke is that you care. The joke is that anything matters to you, at all.’

A man like that…

Clark shudders.

“There you go. Wouldn’t want you to check out so soon. How ya feeling, Supie? Comfortable? Cozy? Can I get you anything?”

Clark says nothing.

‘The best thing you can do is not engage. Don’t play his games. Don’t speak to him. Respond to him as little as you possibly can.’

“You warm enough, Supie? You didn’t find the bomb, you know. That was a decoy.”

Clark’s head snaps up.

‘Sooner or later he’ll figure out something that will force you to respond.Try to keep a cool head. Remember that the Joker says things for the sole purpose of aggravating you.’ Bruce’s fingers had twitched, the small, abortive motion they made when he wanted to clench his fist or drag his fingers along a smooth surface to calm down. ‘Remember that he lies, he is not as powerful as he believes, and that backup will be on the way.’

Clark inhales deeply. Kryptonite interferes with his body's ability to use sunlight - it breaks down the process, shuts down his powers. But his senses were better than a human's even before he started developing powers.

The air hurts, screaming through his throat like a whirlwind of glass shards, but he doesn’t smell ash or ozone or soot or burning bodies or any of the scents that _cling_ to him after a bomb goes of in a major city. He says nothing, tries not to let the relief show on his face. If he had failed, if Lois… Jimmy… Perry… all those people, the girl with the tattoos who works at the shop with the amazing allergy-safe cupcakes, the old man with the sword cane who caught Clark staring and winked at him, the people he’s seen and known and saved and been saved by…

Brianna. Hailey. Rebecca. Mrs. Fields.

They’re okay. He got the bomb away. He didn’t fail them.

“The silent type, eh?” There’s a new edge to the Joker’s voice. “Well well welly well. I have plenty of experience with that one. Let’s see if I can’t get you to open up a little.”

‘The longer you avoid reacting to him, the angrier he’ll get.’

Electricity surges through the metal. Clark screams. The restraints hold him in place as he convulses, but he still writes enough that the kryptonite spikes in his hands slice into formerly undamaged tissue and widen his wounds.

“There we go!” says the Joker, and shuts off the electricity. Clark can smell his own burnt skin. It makes him retch, but all that comes up is a little dribble of blood down his lips. And the blood keeps dripping even after he’s finished heaving - he must have bit his tongue. Or his cheek. Something. “See how much better it is when you give me what I want?”

Clark says nothing. At this point, he doesn’t think he _can_ speak. That will make holding out until the League rescues him or the Joker get reckless and kills him easier. Maybe he can keep the secret. Maybe he won’t fail after all.

~x~

“I’ve got him,” says Red Hood, a day after Clark was abducted.

“Where?” Selina says. She curls her fingers, as if she could extend claws from beneath her nails and tear out the Joker’s heart through sheer force of will. She’s been roaming the rooftops, dangers of going out in costume be damned, to strike terror into the hearts of every unsavory person who has the smallest chance of knowing where the Joker is. She was half-hoping the Joker would come for her, too, take her to whatever little hidey-hole he stashed Clark in, and they could fight their way out together.

Lois has been a wreck. The ugliness of Gotham, of the Joker, should never have come so close to her. Selina was ready for the Joker’s blood before, but now she wants his head.

“The decommissioned nuke tube a hundred miles outside of Gotham.”

Selina blinks. “The...”

“The nuke tube! You know, the tube, with the nukes… fuck, what’s it… the missile silo.”

“Do you have visual confirmation?”

“Not currently, but I did fifteen minutes ago. I’m not going to call you from inside the vents.” Red Hood sounds tense, terse. “Superman’s alive. Joker’s got him wired to monitors, reading his vitals. But he’s in bad shape. Kryptonite. I can’t get him out on my own.”

Selina doesn’t know whether to curse or feel immensely relieved. On the one hand, Clark’s alive. On the other, she has to call Bruce in, and fast, and that means that the Joker might wind up out of Red Hood’s reach. “I don’t suppose you can shoot the Joker in the head and disappear before someone comes to get Superman?”

“I don’t have anything I could use to get the Joker without risking him having time to hit something that’ll kill Superman or damaging some of the equipment he’s got with him and setting something off.” He’s definitely frustrated. Considering his personal desire to kill the Joker, this complication must be driving him up the wall. “Go ahead and call in Batman. I can get to Joker no matter where he ends up.”

“And you?” says Selina. “What’ll you be doing when Batman gets there?”

“I’m a ghost,” Red Hood says, and hangs up.

~x~

The electricity goes back on.

Clark howls, acrid smoke rising from his arms, his legs, everywhere that’s in contact with the metal. He’s bleeding from his nose and mouth. The combination of the kryptonite and the electricity is making his vision, his hearing, all his senses fade in and out. He thinks he might have been here more than a day, though he's only been awake this time for... an hour, maybe, at most. He's trying to keep track of the time by counting seconds, but the numbers keep slipping out of his head. He knows this is definitely the longest he’s ever been exposed to Kryptonite. His skin is blistering and peeling, and there are sores in his mouth.

“Are you having fun?” the Joker asks. “I am. Now, I could keep this up, see how long it takes you to die, then make you dance a little more.” 

The Joker’s getting tired of this. He’s asked now, several times, where Harley is. Clark hasn’t responded. Not because he’s immune to pain - far from it. What the Joker’s been doing to him _hurts_ and he can barely think. But Clark passed the threshold of going nonverbal a while ago, and all the Joker’s tortures are only pushing him further away from the ability to make words.

It’s almost funny.

“But you see,” says the Joker, “I’ve got something even funner for you.”

Clark hears a door open. Footsteps. Then a mask settles over his face, strapped on by pale, spindly hands. There are tubes coming out the sides, connecting the mask to something behind Clark. He doesn't have the energy to lift his head or struggle.

A low hissing fills the room, the sound bouncing off the walls. It doesn’t take long for the sickly green mist to creep up the tubes into his field of vision. It looks sort of like Kryptonite dust but doesn’t smell quite right. Could be the damage to his body and his muddled brain making him misinterpret it, but there’s a heavy _feeling_ in his stomach that says otherwise.

“That’s fear gas, Supie my pal, and it was custom-made for you. That robbery at STAR Labs? We got everything they had on you and your wacky biology. It’ll fuck you up something good. Now, unless you want me to kick this up and send you on the trip of a lifetime, how about you tell me where Harley is?”

Clark doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just tries to keep his breaths shallow.

~x~

Bruce almost didn’t call for backup. Too easy to fall into old habits from the last time. Go out. Become a spectre of loss and pain and rage. Forget everything but the mission. Push away everyone so they wouldn’t fall victim to the curse of his affection.

He’d thought… if he kept his distance, kept things to himself… but he let his guard down, and now it’s playing out again, the same dance with different people.

He almost didn’t call for backup.

But if he hadn’t been working alone last time, maybe Jason would still be alive.

That’s what drives him to call in J’onn. Bruce can’t coordinate teams - he’s not good at it. And he knows better than to think he’d be any good at listening to someone else’s direction right now. But J’onn can get into the silo, can get a read on the situation, can get Clark out while Bruce goes for the Joker.

Bruce sets the plane down. Please, let them not be too late.

J’onn can’t read Clark’s mind. Incompatible neural patterns. Fundamentally different structuring. But they can read the Joker’s mind, because the Joker is only a man, and even though the Joker is an alien to J’onn, he at least came from the same solar system. J’onn’s body goes still and slack, the way it does when they’re reaching, searching for an unfamiliar mind. And then they jolt.

“He’s using the fear gas,” J’onn says. “We must _move_.”

Bruce’s heart slams into his ribcage.

No.

~x~

Bruce told Clark about fear gas before.

He said it caused vivid hallucinations, tapped into every fear you had and threw them all at you at once. He said it was like a flashback and a nightmare and a panic attack and dying, all rolled together and multiplied into an experience so terrifying that there was no room for anything but fear.

He was underselling it.

Clark closed his eyes when he felt the fear gas starting to work. He was trying to prevent visual hallucinations, but it doesn’t really make a difference. The same senses that told him the bomb hadn't gone off are now telling him that people are dying. He can hear them screaming, crying out for someone, anyone to save them. He hears their lungs collapsing and their bones breaking and that horrible silence when their heart stops beating and their blood stops moving. They are everywhere. They are nowhere. He cannot help them.

He tastes ash and blood and infection. He smells death and iron, thick and rich. Sharp nails claw at his skin.

_This is not real. The Joker kidnapped me. This is fear gas. This is not real._

Clark tries to ground himself, tries to focus on the pain in his hands or the metal against his back. Those sensations may be awful, but he knows they’re real. The rest of this is not real.

“Clark!”

Lois. Not real, not real, she’s not –

“Clark! Help!”

“Clark!”

His parents.

He can hear heartbeats that he knows, somehow, are theirs, beating a frantic tempo over all the thousands suffering because he can’t save them. He twists against the restraints, but they’re getting tighter. Locking him in. Squeezing him. He can’t move. He can’t breathe.

“Clark, he’s going to kill us! The Joker –” Lois cuts off with a gasp. “No!”

Clark opens his eyes.

He can’t see Lois or his parents. Can’t x-ray for them because of the kryptonite. He’s in the same room as before, but it’s getting smaller by the second. The walls and the floor and the ceiling are coming for him, pressing around him, flowing over his body. He opens his mouth to scream and concrete slides down his throat, into his lungs and stomach, hardening and expanding until he’s being ripped apart on the inside and crushed on the outside. Everywhere around him, he can hear people dying the same way. He hears the distinctive heartbeats of his alien and metahuman teammates falter, hears John’s constructs and Bruce’s armor shatter under unrelenting concrete, hears his parents and Lois calling for him to save them, hears –

Hears –

“Where is Harley?” booms the Joker’s voice from all around. “Tell me where Harley is and this will all end.”

“Save your own skin,” says Lex Luthor. Suddenly Clark is free of the concrete, gasping for breath on a flat plane of dirt and half-buried garbage. Luthor is standing over him. Clark is on all fours and naked. There’s metal digging into one of his knees. “You always were a self-centered, worthless little mongrel. You know he’s going to get her back. People like him always win, Clark, and fighting just makes it worse for everyone around you.”

Clark lets out a pathetic snarl in between desperate inhales. He still feels like he’s suffocating.

Luthor tuts. “How long will this streak of self-righteous heroism last? What irreparable things will you destroy in this quest for attention? Sooner or later, Clark, you will give up, as you always do. You will show the world what a sad, empty person you are. And the longer you hold out, the more people will suffer.”

Luthor kicks Clark in the stomach, and Clark drops to the ground. Luthor kicks him again, in the head this time. Each blow hits like a truck, and Clark can’t make himself move away. He’s helpless. His breaths are coming faster and faster. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t –

The mask over his face is blowing in oxygen and something that tastes bitter and clear. 

The Joker barely pulls it away before Clark starts coughing, long, ragged coughs that spatter blood down his front. Everything burns, inside and out. His mouth tastes of metal and bile.

“Looks like Crane overestimated the amount of kryptonite dust we needed to put in the gas. I’ll kill him for that.” The Joker sounds bored. “You’re probably not going to last much longer, Supie. I suggest you tell me where Harley is, or I’m going after our dear pal Batsy next.”

Clark wants to spit at him, but even that is beyond Clark’s current capabilities. His sides ache. There’s still blood coming out when he coughs, but it’s thicker than before and tastes somehow wrong. His coughs are getting weaker and it’s still so hard to breathe. He thinks about mustard gas and dissolving lungs and wonders whether it’s just the kryptonite killing him or if whatever chemicals Crane put in his Kryptonian fear gas are speeding the process.

Strong fingers wrap around Clark’s neck. At some point the Joker got back behind Clark. His thumbs dig into the sensitive skin behind Clark’s ears. “If you think you’ll die before you tell me,” the Joker murmurs in Clark’s ear, “well, that might be true. But I can make you suffer before you die, or I can end it quick. Just tell me. Where. Harley is.” The Joker begins to squeeze. Clark tries to breathe in, fill his lungs before the Joker cuts off his air supply, but he can’t stop coughing. He can’t think of a plan, a strategy, a prayer. He has nothing.

But so does the Joker. The Joker has nothing. The Joker is never going to find Harley. She’ll be safe.

Red bursts cloud Clark’s vision. He invited the League and Lois and Selina to celebrate Rosh Hashanah at his parent’s house in two weeks. He hopes they’ll still go, that they’ll be able to lean on each other if he doesn’t make it out of this. Lois and Bruce especially tend to isolate when they really need to talk to people, and they’ve been getting better, but they could slide so easily back into old habits.

He wonders if Bruce will send a flower message to Superman’s grave. He wonders if Lois will start smoking again. He wonders if they, if everyone he loves, will know how much he loves them.

The door bursts open, and Batman descends like the Angel of Death.

“Well, shit,” says the Joker. Then he yanks one of the kryptonite spikes out of Clark’s hand and stabs it into Clark’s chest.

Clark feels it skate off a rib, skitter sideways and leave a long, shallow, jagged gash. Feels white-hot pain like nothing else bloom along the line of the injury, and wonders if the Joker actually read the stolen STAR Labs files or just handed them off to Crane. If the Joker had read them, he’d know that Clark’s heart isn’t nearly so high up or to the left. Clark’s probably going to die anyway, but knowing the Joker completely missed stabbing Clark in the heart when that had clearly been the goal is a certain kind of funny.

Not that the Joker would appreciate that kind of humor. Both because he has nothing resembling a decent sense of humor, and because judging by the whoosh, the thud, and the way Clark no longer has fingers on his neck, the Joker has just been knocked out with a batarang.

“Cl-” Bruce chokes on the word, sweeping closer. “Superman. Stay with me. Stay with us.”

Clark looks up at Bruce, tries to communicate everything he’s been thinking - I love you, I love you so much, please never forget that I love you and never let Lois or my parents or anyone forget how much I love them - with his face and eyes and heart before passing out.

~x~

Martha Kent sits at her son’s bedside and prays.

He’s a big man, her son. Doesn’t hardly seem to know it, the way he acts - like a big dog who thinks he’s a teacup dog. Sure, he’s aware of his size when it really matters - knows a big fellow like him can be intimidating, so he makes an effort to be smaller and softer and non-threatening. He’s good at it, but Martha knows damn well he’s two inches taller than her.

But in this bed… with tubes and wires taped all around him, his eyes sunken and bruised, his hands bandaged and his skin bubbling away…

She turns to Jonathan and they hold each other a while.

She always worried this planet would kill Clark.

She supposes it gets to all of them, in the end, but please, not like this.

~x~

Lois has finally fallen asleep for the first time since Clark was taken when Selina calls Red Hood. Selina’s perched on her balcony with the door cracked open, watching Lois through the glass. Lois couldn’t sleep at her and Clark’s apartment, couldn’t sleep in the Watchtower where Clark’s life is hanging suspended on IV drips and a tenuous knowledge of his physiology cobbled together from his ship’s records and the tests done by STAR Labs. In Selina’s bed, with the cats surrounding her and Selina’s hand on her back, Lois was finally able to rest.

Selina will join her. Soon.

“He’s being held at Arkham. I’m guessing you know your way around,” Selina says.

Red Hood snorts. “I don’t know if you’re commenting on my sanity or my professional preparedness, but in either case, you’d be right. The Joker’s going to be nothing more than a wet smear and a bad dream in a few hours.” He’s quiet a moment, then says “Hope Superman pulls through. He seems like a decent guy.”

“I hope so too,” says Selina.

“I hear some people who order hits want trophies,” Red Hood says. “You want anything? A finger, his tongue?”

“I’d tell you to burn the motherfucker, but I want to be able to make a positive ID,” says Selina. “No trophies. We don’t need anyone going on a pilgrimage to see a chunk of his hair or any of that shit.”

Red Hood chuckles, dark and deep. “Fair enough, amiga. I trust you’ll handle the cremation once I’m done with him.”

“You can count on it,” Selina says. She’ll scatter the ashes in a toilet somewhere and flush them away.

~x~

No matter how hard the good people of Arkham try, the Joker always worms through the holes in the system. The place gets infiltrated by government operatives for departments that like the idea of having supervillains on a chain, by mobsters who like the idea of having supervillains indebted to them, by the Joker’s own people in preparation for the day when their boss need to get broken out again. It’s less a matter of if the Joker will break out and more a matter of who will break him out first.

Arkham’s the best facility for mentally ill criminals in a several-state radius - it’s not really the fault of the people who work there that the system keeps sending them assholes like the Joker in addition to people who are actually mentally ill.

The Joker’s in a holding cell, in a currently unused ward, away from the rest of the patients. Arkham doesn’t do solitary, but this is the closest they’ve got. That makes things easier.

The Joker’s also barely roughed up, just a bruised knot on his forehead. Red Hood bites down on a surge of anger, stores it, readies it. He’s thought about how he wants to do this. Nearly every day for the past two and a half years.

He has two holsters with .45s and one holster with a knife. Not the knife he uses on the the abusers he’s been going after - though the Joker certainly deserves that. No, he’s not going to use anything distinctive. The man who kills the Joker is going to be a person of great interest to the constabulary, and Red Hood doesn’t want that kind of attention.

Still.

It was very difficult not to bring a crowbar.

The Joker is chained. He raises his head when Red Hood opens the door.

“Now, you don’t look -” he begins, and Red Hood slams his knee into the Joker’s jaw and punches down with enough force to break his nose.

“I thought a lot about what I’d want to say to you,” Red Hood says. “But you know the thing about monologues. Someone always shows up in the middle to fuck up your plans.” He breaks both the Joker’s hands in quick succession before the Joker can respond. “So I’ve just got two words for you.”

He puts a gun to the Joker’s temple.

“Surprise, fucker,” says Jason Todd, and pulls the trigger.


End file.
